


the weight of the world

by hopeisallyouneed847



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Brain Injury, M/M, Seizures, how the hell do you not spoil shit in the tags??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 08:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15553800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeisallyouneed847/pseuds/hopeisallyouneed847
Summary: This was it. With a single signature, Taako was immortal. There was only one condition: his soul.I wrote this because Liz, theninthmember, is awesome and always inspires me to write stuff.Also, I know I suck at summaries.





	the weight of the world

The steaming hot chocolate dripped down Taako’s chin in a careless gulp.

“I make the best hot chocolate,” Kravitz bragged, quietly.

He had not the heart to tell him that all he could taste was key lime. A blessing and a curse.

“Delicious,” Taako mumbled before moving on. “So this is for real? I’m not getting fucked over?”

Kravitz smiled and with a wave of his fingers, a contract appeared on the table. “Of course not. It’s more than a fair deal, if I do say so myself.”

Taako turned the contract toward himself. “Well, I think you’re really getting more out of this than I am. Because you get the pleasure of looking at me young and beautiful for eternity and you get my soul. I’m sure this is a less than fair deal but I suppose, if--pen?

With another wave of his lanky fingers, a black fountain pen was conjured on top of the contract. “As I said, the soul is not for me. It is for my queen.”

“Mhm,” Taako mumbled, putting the pen cap between his teeth and signing the contract in flashy calligraphy. He slid the paper and writing utensil back to Kravitz. “Here you go, big guy.”

“Excellent,” Kravitz said to himself, looking over the contract with a smile.

“So, is this what you do for a living?” Taako asked, in an attempt to strike up conversation with the admittedly striking man across from him in Taako’s own apartment. “Take the souls of the innocent?”

It was a joke on Taako’s part, but Kravitz did not find it amusing. He squinted his eyes defensively at Taako. “Something like that.”

There was a silence before Taako spoke. “So when… or how… do you get it?”

“We harvest them in about eleven months.”

“Cool.” Another moment of quiet, the only sound being Taako’s space heater and its repetitive click. “Why do you want mine specifically?”

Kravitz didn’t miss a beat. “That’s not something I can answer.” He stood. “It’s been a pleasure. The effects are immediate and your eternal life and beauty begins as of now. Congratulations, Taako. You are immortal.”

As he headed toward the door, contract and pen in hand, Taako asked, “Why can’t you just do your fucking magic shit and disappear out of here?” He demonstrated, shaking his hand.

“Too flashy. Not my style.” And with that, Kravitz’s body passed through the closed door, dissapating when he came in contact with the solid wood.

Taako couldn’t help but laugh.

He stayed seated for awhile, staring blankly into his mug. It read, “Fuck it” and he felt that there was some sort of irony or joke there but he decided not to think too hard. This was it. Taako was going to live forever.

After some minutes that Taako could not focus hard enough to recount, he stood, bringing his mug to the sink and taking one last deep breath of the last bits of sweet liquid remaining in the cup before washing it and placing it in the drying rack. He felt as if he should be celebrating his newfound immortality, but strangely, all Taako wanted to do was sleep. It was only 8:00, but his eyelids started to bat closed and so he donned his pajamas and brushed his teeth.

As he lay in bed, staring up at his ceiling, Taako contemplated forever. He thought about the people who would come and go and the way time changes things. He thought about the inevitability of the sun causing the end of the earth and what might happen then. Would he burn like everyone else or would he have to live through that? And what about youth and beauty then? What will that be worth when everything else is done for?

He watched his chest rise and fall and as he drifted to sleep, he wondered if that’s a sight he’d ever tire of.  
_____

Taako awoke to a bright light shining in through his window. He didn’t have to check to know that it was far too early but he managed to drag himself from his comforting bed to his kitchen for breakfast.

He opened his fridge and reached for a carton of eggs and milk. He cracked two eggs and whisked them together, adding small drizzles of milk. He put the eggs on the stove and then onto a plate when they were thoroughly cooked, he sat down to eat them, though he couldn’t quite bring his fork to his mouth. The food he always put so much love and care into even when simple as scrambled eggs had always made his own mouth water but now, his appetite was gone and he seemed to be disgusted, even.

Confused, Taako scraped his food into the compost and returned to his room. There he sat, on the hardwood floor, his head spinning ever so slightly. He shook himself out of this trance and opened his closet.

A long sleeved white crop top. A pink skirt. Skin colored tights. White, strappy platform boots. A pinkish purple headscarf.

He looked at himself in his full body mirror which leaned against the wall between his bed and closet, unable to decide whether his hair should be braided or not. He tried both a couple times, finally sticking with a messy braid, draped over his right shoulder.

Taako sat at his vanity, nearly missing the stool. For a moment, he had to stop, but eventually, he was able to fill in his light eyebrows, brush mascara through his lashes, and paint a frosty purple lipgloss onto his lips.

On this bright yet chilly morning, Taako’s mind was all but present. In those brief moments when he could concentrate on coherent thoughts, he could still not piece together this dizzy and absent minded nausea. There was plenty more time spent sitting on his floor before he was able to stand and take the train to his place of work.

Taako had hardly noticed he’d arrived as he was opening up Bitchin’ Bakery.

The bakery cafe was not quite Taako’s dream but it was something. It was enough to keep him content for some time. Somewhere deep inside Taako, he knew it was time for a change, but the familiar smell of bread in the mornings was enough to keep him going until he was ready. Sometimes he thought that he had already peaked with Sizzle it Up With Taako, but now, he realized, he had all of the time in the world to keep going up.

Ren found Taako leaning at the front counter. Neither knew how long he’d been there.

“Whoa, there, you okay?” she asked, putting a hand on Taako’s shoulder.

He shook his head. “What? Oh, yeah.”

“You look kinda green,” Ren carefully commented, as not to hurt his feelings.

“I’m fine!” he quickly assured her, snapping back into himself.

Ren, though skeptical, decided to look over the odd behavior. “Alrightie, then, let’s get baking!”

And so they did.

The morning was fairly busy, as most were. The smell of pancakes and croissants and bread and pies and fresh coffee filled the air and Taako was at peace.

A bell ringing at the counter caught his attention. He set down his piping bags and rushed up to the front. “How may I help you?”

“I ordered a dozen cupcakes? It’s for Erin,” a young, bright eyed teenager said, just loud enough to be heard over the bustling business.

“Ren!” Taako shouted back, turning his head back slightly. “Dozen cupcakes for Eri--”

Taako stopped himself when a familiar figure caught his eye. Tall and mysterious, handsome, even though his face was not visible, standing in the corner, a notepad in hand. As quickly as Taako had noticed, though, this figure was gone. My mind is playing tricks, Taako thought. Why would Kravitz be here?

When Taako tuned back in to reality, Ren was approaching to help the customer at the counter. “Here, I got this, you go finish piping those meringues before you have to go back and whip them again.”

Taako nodded and headed toward the back once more, shaking off what must have been just a trick of light.

And for the rest of the day, that was that. A strange morning was nothing more than a strange morning. Taako felt fine. Good. Like himself.

He was immortal, for God’s sake.  
_____

Waking up the next morning, Taako still found himself feeling good.

And the next morning.

And the morning after that.

It had all been one off morning, that was all, it was nothing to worry about. Taako’s morning routine didn’t falter anymore. Breakfast, get dressed, go to work.

Two weeks, even had passed when he was on the train, as usual, and he was looking at a woman, knitting a scarf. As deja vu hit, it shouldn’t have seemed strange. Taako had seen just about everything there is to see in all of his years taking the train. Something so simple shouldn’t have set off any alarms. But this was different. This was something else. Something he couldn’t quite place.

Today was a rare day when he arrived after Ren.

“You are,” she glanced at her watch. “three minutes late. Unacceptable.” She smiled at her joke but Taako remained stone faced. “Alright, wound my pride, why don’t you. Anyway, we’ve gotta make four dozen cookies bef--”

Taako’s eyes widened and his body stiffened. Never in his life had he felt more out of control than this odd, out of place moment. “Taako? Taako, are you okay?”

And Taako saw a dark figure in the corner of the room, clearly now, a yellow notepad in hand. This time, he did not disappear when Taako saw him, he just watched and jotted things down with a black fountain pen.

“Taako?”

The next thing he felt was quick and uncertain. The cold floor. Black.  
_____

There are things that happen and it’s not that they have no answers, it’s the questions that are uncertain. What to ask. Where even to begin. That was what it felt like with Taako’s seizure.

The doctors didn’t seem to have answers either. With no history of seizures and otherwise pristine health, they let him go with the advice to stay home for awhile and rest. Taako hated the idea but Ren insisted she could hold down the fort. 

So he stayed home with not much to do but cook, but it seemed that once again, he had lost his appetite. By the end of the weekend, he had fifteen loaves of banana bread and nothing to do with them.

The only answer Taako had was this newfound immortality, and it was hardly an answer anyway, hardly a place to begin. But he knew it had to have something to do with these recent odd occurrences within him. This revelation made Taako’s head hurt and so he started his shower, a place where he didn’t have to think.

He disrobed and stepped into the hot water. His skin was on fire, only for a second, as he adjusted to the heat. His arms and legs felt like jelly and his head started to pound so hard he could hear it clear as day. There was ringing in his ears and the bathroom light hurt his eyes and all he could bring himself to do was sit. He tried to yell in pain, but a small squeak was all he could muster and it was barely audible above the sound of water hitting his back and the shower floor. All Taako could think was that he needed to find Kravitz.

When Taako pulled himself out of the shower, the pounding stopped suddenly. Is this what eternity will be like? he questioned, as his mind was somewhat clearer and calmer than before.

Towel wrapped around his waist, Taako retreated to his room, donning a tank top and sweatpants. He twisted his hair in the towel and sat on his bed, gazing out of the window to the bustling streets below.

And there, like an answer to a prayer, was the dark mysterious man, looking up at Taako’s window, jotting down notes. If it were anyone else, Taako wouldn’t have noticed. If it had been any other sullenly handsome man, he still would have passed Taako by. But it was like a spotlight shone down on him, like fate wanted—needed Taako to see him.

Taako opened his window and stuck his head out to shout, but when he opened his mouth, Kravitz was nowhere to be seen.


End file.
